Samsung’s flagship soundbars have been major critical and commercial hits for years now. As a result, Samsung’s soundbar division has understandably played it quite safe with them of late, making only relatively small tweaks here and minor adjustments there for each annual refresh.
The Samsung HW-Q990F jettisons this pragmatic conservatism. One of its most important elements – its external subwoofer – has undergone a quite radical transformation. The question is, does this bass speaker redesign benefit the system’s sound quality, or will it turn out to be an unfortunate case of style trumping substance?